Inferno at the World Trade Center, NY

9-11: The fateful date As in the morning hours of September 11, 2001 I was anxiously watching on TV the dramatic events taking place in Ne w York City, and saw the two World Trade Center towers engulfed in immense flames brought about by terrorists who deliberately crashed two passenger jets into them, my training in Structural Engineering instantly elicited in me visions of doom, and a feeling that the towers were in imminent danger of collapse. Still, knowing that half a decade earlier the towers had resisted massive damage in a terrorist attack, and being unaware of similar cases of skyscraper collapse, I hoped against reason that they might survive yet again. To my horror, I then witnessed the unthinkable unfolding in front of my eyes. In retrospect, I should have been 100% sure that they would fail, but the idea was so disgusting that I allowed my wishful thinking to prevail instead. Soon after the tragedy occurred, cooler thoughts and the engineer in me returned, and I began to ponder about the mechanics that led to the catastrophe.